No Peace without Justice: Gaza Has Just Vanquished a 20-Year-Old Israeli Plan
By
New Age Islam Staff Writer
Hamas Attacked
Israel To Assert Its Role In Arab Peace Process. Ramzy Baroud Looks Into The Zionist
Policy Of Disengagement From The Peace Process With Occupied Palestine As Israel
Does Not See Itself As An Illegal Occupant. The Zionists Claim That That Have
Reclaimed Their Forefather Israel's Homeland Which The Palestinians Had Illegally
Occupied For Centuries.
Main
Points:
1. All Israel
governments have followed the policy of disengagement from the peace process.
2. In 2005,
Israel decided to redeploy its forces around Gaza.
3. Palestine
issue does not figure in election campaigns in Israel.
4. Israel does
not consider itself as illegal occupant of Palestine.
5. Israel has
always tried to crush Palestinian resistance with brute force.
------
Ramzy
Baroud looks into the Zionist policy of disengagement from the peace process
with Occupied Palestine as Israel does not see itself as an illegal occupant.
The
Zionists claim that that have reclaimed their forefather Israel's homeland
which the Palestinians had illegally occupied for centuries. They are just
trying to remove the Palestinians from their homeland.
That is why
Israel has tried to crush every resistance from the Palestinians with brute
force. Abductions, killings and incarceration of children and women have become
a routine affair. In old videos, Israeli soldiers are seen dragging young and
little boys from homes for throwing stones. Illegal Jewish settlement in Gaza
are a constant cause of clashes and protests.
Israel has
tried to convey the message to the world that the war broke out the first time
on October 7 after Hamas launched an avalanche of rockets on Israel. The truth
is that Israel has persecuted Palestinians for the last 75 years. During this
period, it has killed more than 750,000 Palestinians and maimed millions apart
from causing mental trauma to millions. For the last ten days, it has denied
water, food, medicines and electricity to the innocent civilians of Gaza. Many
children have died of bombing. Yet Netanyahu said there were no innocent people
in Gaza and that they were 'worst monsters on Earth'. Now Israel plans to
invade and occupy Gaza once again to prevent any offensive by Hamas.
Israel was
planning to annexe the entire Gaza into Israel through the peace process with
Saudi Arabia in which Palestine was given no space. Hamas smelt that and
scuttled the peace process by attacking Israel and putting Saudi Arabia in a
moral dilemma which compelled it to back out from the normalisation process.
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By
Ramzy Baroud
October 20
2023
Israel had
the perfect plan for Gaza – in fact, for all Palestinians, when it decided to
redeploy its forces around the Occupied Gaza Strip in 2005.
Despite
statements made, back then, by Israeli officials that the ‘disengagement’ plan
aimed at severing Israel’s legal and other responsibilities from its role as an
occupier, the actual story was different.
Palestinians in Gaza celebrate the launch of Al-Aqsa Flood operation on
October 7. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)
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Dov
Weisglass, a top adviser to the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
conveyed the real reasons behind the redeployment.
Weisglass knew
exactly what he was saying; after all, he was one of the architects of the
plan.
But how
much of the Israeli plan, as described by Weisglass, was, in fact, implemented?
And did the current war in the Strip change those outcomes, as pronounced
nearly two decades ago?
“The
significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process,”
Weisglass told Haaretz in 2004.
That part
has, indeed, been achieved in full. Not only was the so-called peace process
frozen, but Israel has, since then, carried out numerous steps to make sure
that there is nothing worth negotiating over.
The
exponential growth of illegal Jewish settlements, the killing of Palestinians,
the desecration of holy sites and the annexation plans made it unrealistic to
even suggest that a two-state solution is still practically possible.
But why was
Israel keen on freezing a ‘process’ that was futile to begin with?
It was not
the peace process that mattered to Israel, but the fact that, so long as such
political conversations were still taking place, the Palestinian political
agenda remained relevant.
This logic,
long argued by Palestinians, was supported by Weisglass himself, when he said
that “When you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a
Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders
and Jerusalem.”
“Effectively,”
he added, “this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it
entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with
authority and permission. All with a (US) presidential blessing and the
ratification of both houses of Congress.”
This
explains much of what has happened since the senior Israeli officials made
those revelations and predictions.
First, is
that all Israeli governments, regardless of their ideological or political
orientations, remained faithful to the plan, and never engaged in any genuine
political conversations on the future of a Palestinian State, the rights of the
Palestinians, let alone a just peace.
This
indicates that Israel’s intentions were not open for debate within the
country’s political establishment. For Tel Aviv, it was the end of peace
efforts, and the start of a new phase, that of entrenching the Occupation.
Second,
every US administration since then has either invested in the overall Israeli
agenda or disowned the very ‘peace process’ that the Americans had, themselves,
invented and sustained.
This, too,
did not happen by chance. Israel had invested much lobbying efforts and
diplomacy in dissuading the Americans from continuing to pursue their own
agenda.
Not only
did the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu get what he wanted, he even
managed to convince the Trump Administration in 2017 to follow Israel’s own
agenda on Jerusalem, on the refugees, on settlements and even on annexation.
The Biden
administration did not alter that new grim political reality established by
President Donald Trump, even if some of its language appeared to suggest
otherwise.
Third,
although unwittingly, Weisglass indicated that Israel does not see Palestinians
and their struggle as fragments, but as a unified whole. By blocking one aspect
of that struggle, the political process, all others are meant to fall apart
like pieces of dominos.
The
division of Palestinians, along with the ability of Mahmoud Abbas to sustain
his Palestinian Authority for all these years despite its failure to achieve
anything of substance, allowed Israel to advance its original plan unhindered.
Frustrated
by the insistence of many countries, including the US, that Israel must engage
in a political process, Israel, instead, decided to ‘disengage’ from Gaza.
“The
disengagement is actually formaldehyde,” Weisglass said. “It supplies the
amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political
process with the Palestinians.”
The Israeli
plan, however, was not a complete success. Palestinians continued to lead a
massive campaign of resistance, involving all aspects of society in Gaza, the
West Bank and Jerusalem.
And, as was
always the case, Israel responded with a massive show of force whenever
Palestinians seemed ready to challenge their Israeli jailors.
From the
frequent raids on Jenin, Nablus, Jericho to the massive and deadly wars on
Gaza, Israel has done everything in its power, not only to crush Palestinians
but also to send them a message: no resistance of any kind will be tolerated,
and no form of resistance will ever be enough to place Palestine back on
Israel’s political agenda, or those of its allies.
A feeling
of ‘we won, and you lost’ has pervaded official Israeli institutions and
society. Israeli election campaigns seemed entirely disinterested in even
discussing the settlements, a Palestinian State, the status of Jerusalem and so
on.
Palestinians
were still useful, however. The PA served as a line of defence for the
ever-growing settlements. And every Palestinian attack against Israeli targets
was utilized as further proof that Israel has no peace partner, thus
solidifying the anti-peace position of every Israeli government.
The
discussion in the media following the Hamas attack on southern Israel on
October 7 focused on the attack itself, on Hamas as a group and, later,
although selectively, on the bloodbath created by Israel in Gaza.
But that
date was not the start of the war; it is a horrific episode of a war that has
already started and is sustained by a very violent Israeli military Occupation
and apartheid.
Equally
important, regardless of Israeli propaganda and distorted western media
coverage, there is no question that Israel has failed.
That
failure was initiated by Sharon’s wishful thinking in 2005, and maintained
through the illusions and arrogance of every Israeli government ever since.
The truth
is that Netanyahu is only a cog in a massive Israeli political machine which
aims at dismissing the Palestinian cause, forever.
Even those
who insist on supporting Israel at any cost, cannot now genuinely pretend that
Palestine is not back on the agenda as the Middle East’s most vital issue.
Without a free Palestine, there can never be true peace, security or stability.
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Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.
He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is
“Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak
out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for
Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-politics/peace-justice-gaza-israeli-plan/d/130937